A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
